Aviation News Releases Magazine – Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Top Stories

Company will promote its full line of executive jets, and the Legacy 650 debuts at the event. São José dos Campos, March 1, 2011 – Embraer will participate in the 2011 Asian Aerospace Expo (www.AsianAerospace.com) to be held in Hong Kong, China, March 8-10. The Company will promote its full line of executive jets at Chalet C5, Hanger 2, Hong Kong Business Aviation Center, and its…

WASHINGTON — NASA’s Glory spacecraft is scheduled for launch on Friday, March 4. Technical issues with ground support equipment for the Taurus XL launch vehicle led to the scrub of the original Feb. 23 launch attempt. Those issues have been resolved.The March 4 liftoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., is targeted for 5:09:43 a.m. EST, in the middle of a 48-second launch window. Spacecraft…

Brazilian airline plans to operate a fleet of 24 E-Jets by 2012. ConteúdoSão José dos Campos, March 1, 2011 – Embraer has signed a new contract with TRIP Linhas Aéreas for the sale of four EMBRAER 190 jets. With this order, the total E-Jets ordered by TRIP comes to 24, taking into consideration aircraft acquired directly from Embraer or through leasing companies. This year, alone, …

WASHINGTON — NASA will host a media teleconference at 1 p.m. EST on Thursday, March 3, to discuss the first computer model that explains the recent period of decreased solar activity during the sun’s 11-year cycle. The recent solar minimum, a period characterized by a lower frequency of sunspots and solar storms, ended in 2008 and was the deepest observed in almost 100 years.The teleconference…

Windsor Locks, CT, fully owned service center will cover the Northeast region of U.S. ​São José dos Campos, February 2011 – Embraer’s growing U.S. fleet of Phenom 100, Phenom 300, Legacy 600 and Legacy 650 executive jets now have a third option of Embraer fully owned maintenance center in addition to the other existing two – Mesa, AZ, and Fort Lauderdale, FL – in operation…

WASHINGTON — NASA invites its Twitter followers to a special Tweetup with astronaut Doug Wheelock at 3 p.m. EST on Wednesday, March 16. The event will take place in the James E. Webb Memorial Auditorium at NASA Headquarters, 300 E St. SW, Washington.Wheelock posted images he took of Earth from the International Space Station to his Twitter account, and he was the first person to “check in” from…

Relationship between global luxury travel company and private aviation leader provides access to expert travel advisors and private club membership Flexjet, a leader in business aviation solutions, and luxury travel company Abercrombie & Kent announced an exclusive marketing alliance today to provide value and unique benefits to one another’s customers. Flexjet customers…

(Heli-Expo, Orlando, Florida and Montreal, Canada – March 5, 2011) Esterline CMC Electronics (CMC) invites attendees at this year’s Heli-Expo to visit booth #4234 and find out how CMC’s TacView® Portable Mission Display is fit for the mission by bringing a wealth of capabilities to the helicopter cockpit. The TacView system facilitates airborne mission effectiveness and increases crew efficiency…

By Leithen Francis MELBOURNE, Australia — Pakistan is in negotiations with the U.S. to get more Lockheed Martin F-16s over and above what it already has on order, while at the same time it develops its defense manufacturing capability to reduce its reliance on the U.S. “We have plans to have more F-16s and are negotiating with…

By Amy ButlerWashington The question sweeping the U.S. defense establishment is: How low did Boeing go? Nearly three years after the U.S. Air Force’s selection of a Northrop Grumman/EADS A330-based tanker was found by government auditors to be flawed, the service has now chosen a Boeing design to replace its aging KC-135 refuelers. The Air…

By Andrew Compart US Airways has canceled more than 300 flights because of the U.S. Transportation Department’s rule limiting most tarmac delays to three hours, which went into effect last April, the carrier’s director of operations control said Feb. 23. Denis Barrett, part of a panel discussing the rule at the American Bar Association’s…

By Jens Flottau Ryanair is in the early stages of talks with both Russia’s United Aircraft Corp. (UAC) and China’s Comac regarding a possible order for either the MS-21 or the C919 jet. “They are very keen to work with Ryanair,” CEO Michael O’Leary says. “We haven’t got a firm offer on price, and at the moment we don’t have certainty about…

By Jens Flottau jens@flottau.comFRANKFURT The International Air Transport Association (IATA) is moving its annual general meeting to Singapore, sources told Aviation Week Monday. IATA confirmed the move on Tuesday. The event was originally planned for June 5-7 in Cairo, but the political situation in Egypt, which was unstable until very recently,…

By Michael A. Taverna PARIS — Thales says deliveries of the Watchkeeper UAV will get under way toward year’s end. Handover of the system, intended for intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance, had been expected in February but were delayed by some as-yet-undisclosed “technical difficulties,” Thales executives said…

By William Garvey william_garvey@aviationweek.com Having recently acquired a U.S.-based aviation engine maker as well as a kit plane company, the Chinese are now buying Cirrus Industries, the Duluth, Minn., builder of the four-place Cirrus SR22 family of aircraft. The acquisition, announced today, is expected to close by midyear. Terms of the…

By Mark Carreau HOUSTON — During a Feb. 28 spacewalk, Discovery astronauts Al Drew and Steve Bowen lugged a failed International Space Station (ISS) thermal control system pump to a stowage platform on the station’s U.S. Quest airlock, where it will await a return to Earth aboard NASA’s hoped-for STS-135 mission. Technicians on the ground…

By Mark Carreau, Michael A. TavernaHouston, Paris With the lengthy assembly of the International Space Station drawing to a close, NASA is moving to extend use of the orbiting laboratory to other federal agencies, academia and the private sector through a fast-paced competition to select a non-profit manager for oversight of the broad, cutting-edge…

By Madhu Unnikrishnan Maintenance gets more complicated when multiple airlines operate an aircraft over its service life. Given that almost 40% of the global airline fleet is leased rather than owned, the way leasing companies, airlines and to a lesser extent maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) providers structure contracts to ensure proper asset …

A Libyan Arab Airlines plane refused permission to land in Malta this week was carrying pilots to fly back to Libya two fighter jets flown to the island by defecting pilots, Malta’s premier said on Sunday …

International air freight and passenger traffic picked up in January but rising oil prices caused by political unrest in the Middle East could make 2011 a challenging year, airline body IATA said on Monday …